Category: catching up

A toy off the rack – 30 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Scamp was out in the morning in the torrential rain to go to her FitSteps class. I offered her a lift, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I think she was glad to get out of the house for a while

The expression “A toy off the rack” came from Skye. When one of my nieces was quite young, she’d accompany her mum to the shop.

Notice, shop, singular. There is only one shop in Staffin. One shop and one post office.

Or when she went with her mum to the ‘Big City’ of Portree. She would pester her mum for “A toy off the rack”. That meant she wanted something, anything, a toy. And all the toys were kept in those rotating metal racks. Since then it’s been synonymous with somebody in the house wanting something. Today it was me. I’d just spent a considerable amount of money on a phone which was coming today, but now I wasn’t satisfied because it looked like there wasn’t enough storage on it and I was moaning that I should have bought the bigger one. That’s why Scamp was so determined to get out for a while.

I got the message that the phone was coming around 4.30 and it was just 12.30. There was nothing for it but to wait. Eventually the DPD van stopped outside and there was a knock at the door. The man photographed the parcel and left. It must have been a horrible day for driving with all the water that was pouring out of the sky. I sliced open the box with an old bone handled knife that must be older than me. Probably wearing on for 90 years old, and here was I using it to open up a piece of tech that would look like black magic to the person who made that knife. There was a black slab of glass and metal in the black box. I took it out and plugged it into its black rapid charger with its black cable and it lit up with a blue light. Were you really expecting the light to be black?

I knew it was going to take about half an hour to charge, even with a rapid charger, so I took my camera out to have something to talk to when I went for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see today, but thankfully the rain had stopped and there was even a chance that the sun was coming out. PoD turned out to be a shot of two women walking home along my favourite path through the trees. It was good to see that some brave folk were out for a walk through the woods without a care, or an umbrella. I had my Goretex jacket on. I know just how fickle the Scottish weather can be.

The phone was charged and it was big and maybe a bit clumsy, but it was fast. Once it had done all the things that new phones do, I transferred almost all of my apps from the old phone and then set about tidying thing. Chucking things out and found that that 128GB will probably be enough for the present moment. I eventually got to be just after mindnight after winning a lengthy fight with Spotify, but having scoring draw with WhatsApp. I’d had enough of phones. I went to bed. That’s why this is a catch up.

No plans for tomorrow. If it’s good we’ll go for lunch somewhere.

 

Elgol – 24 May 2022

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Today we finally made it to Elgol.

That strange place where the road leads to the sea and stops there. When the light is right and the Cuillins are lit by it it’s magical. Also when the light is poor, it’s mystical, seeing the mountains appear and disappear as the clouds break. Whatever the weather, you can turn your back on the crammed car parks, the pop-up coffee booths, the stalls selling trips out on RIBs to the islands and be somewhere else. Unfortunately there are masses of people arrive here, stop and say “Is that IT?” “Is this why we drove for miles and miles along a single track road in the rain, to see some mountains and some sea?” YES! “There’s not even a decent chip shop” NO! That’s part of its charm. Have I given you the impression that, I like Elgol?

It is a long drive from Staffin. All the way south to Broadford on the ‘main’ road. Then onto the single track road out to the west to Elgol. It’s around 55 miles and takes about one and a half hours. Going back it’s another 55 miles and another hour and a half because there is no alternative route. We stopped for petrol in Portree on the way down and drove down to just past Broadford where we stopped at Loch Cill Chriosd. A lovely quiet spot with beautiful views on a good day and today was a good day. There’s an old ruin of a church there, the Church of Kilchrist, but I was more interested in the landscape round the loch which is almost covered with rushes. On a day with little wind, the loch produces beautiful reflections. It was almost perfectly still today, although there was a shower of rain. Photos taken we pressed on to Elgol.

It was really busy. Cars and vans of the camper variety parked everywhere and anywhere. Scamp saw a likely place to park up near the village hall. There was one space left. Luckily we only had one car. She took some photos and then went to the village hall which had a tea shop beside it. I’d remembered my boots this time, so I headed down to the ‘beach’. As I’ve said before ‘beach’ is a misnomer. There’s no way you could erect your deck chair on this beach with rocks that are graded from fist sized stones to man sized boulders (or should that be ‘person sized?). However, those boulders didn’t stop a bridal party in suits and sticky-out white dress tying the knot beside the big eroded cliff! I was a bit peeved at first because that was one of the spots I wanted to photograph, but they were there first and I was only a nuisance photog who would have to be photoshopped out of their photos later.

The weather was jsut perfect and I got the photos I wanted with the equipment I wanted to use. I’d brought my old 10-20mm Sigma ultra-wide lens, fitted on the A6000 camera. It’s a really good lens that only works in manual these days, but I don’t mind that because it produces such good results. I’d brought the A7iii and kit lens as well, but having both meant I didn’t have to swap lenses. Someone had been thoughtful enough to sail a three masted sailing ship into position below one of the mountains as an extra little interest point.
After a while I’d taken all the photos I wanted and headed back up the steep hill to the tea shop where I thought Scamp would be waiting, but she was off on her own climbing a hill to another viewpoint, but had seen me and come back down again. I know now that we should have walked back up to the viewpoint, but honestly I was knackered with climbing that hill. A cup of tea helped and then we drove back those 55 miles to the house.

Earlier in the day we’d said goodbye to June and Ian who were off in the morning with Jackie to catch the bus that would take them down to Glasgow. I didn’t really envy them the trip, with their first, and only, stop in Fort William. Then the next half of the journey to Glasgow itself, then another bus to Cumbersheugh. In another way I did envy them the ability to just sit there in relative comfort instead of having to drive down the road. That’s what we’d have to do tomorrow.

We’d been invited to Jackie and Murdo’s for dinner. It was a reasonably comfortable night, so we just walked down to Burnside. I was cautious with my alcohol intake because I knew I was driving us home the next day. Scamp got the offer of a dress for the next wedding from Jackie, an offer she couldn’t or wouldn’t refuse, so we carried that back to the house later. We’d still a few things to pack, so with that done we went to bed, because tomorrow was going to be a long day.

PoD just had to be Elgol!

The only plan for tomorrow was to stop at Columba for a slice or two of the wedding cake, then drive, drive, drive.

Heading South – 14 April 2022

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You could say were were in train-ing for a holiday. You could say it, but only if you were into bad puns.

There wasn’t a lot to say about the day:

09:30 Taxi to the station.

09:45 Train to Edinburgh – First Class, of course.

11:00 Train from Edinburgh to Peterborough – First Class again.

14:45 Arrived in Peterborough after a somewhat disappointing lunch. A veg wrap for Scamp and a tub of veg salad for me. We made up for it with alcohol, though!

An hour to hang about in Peterborough station waiting for the next train. There’s not a lot to do in Peterborough station if you’re not a trainspotter, but I did get a photo of Scamp with a <spit> Starbucks latte, or Babychino as she described it.

15:50 Train from Peterborough to Stowmarket.

17:15 Arrived in Stowmarket.

Couldn’t find Simonne who was our chauffeuse for the final leg of the journey. She said she was in the car park, but she must have been lying … or else, there was more than one car park. Aha! There was another car park and there was Simonne! Hooray, we will go to the ‘new’ house!

It was only about a fifteen minute journey to Old Newton. After meeting and being greeted by Vixen, we went on a tour of the house, complete with the 3’-6”high doors. Almost like half a door, given that the width of it was normal. It was just the height that was a bit disconcerting.

When Jamie got home, later, it was too dark to get a tour of the garden. Instead, we had dinner of Thai Fish Cakes, which we’ve never managed to master and then we just sat and talked then watched TV for a triple episode binge of Anatomy of a Scandal which was quite interesting, or maybe we were both just zonked after a day of sitting, eating, drinking and changing trains.

Surprisingly the bed was comfortable and the room was, well, ‘roomy’. The original tenants might have been short, but they certainly liked lots of space. In a 16th century house I was expecting creepy noises in the night, but either the spirits weren’t interested or we were both too tired to be bothered, but we had an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

PoD is a rather scruffy building that used to be part of the station at Stowmarket. It might be a bit of an eyesore now, but if you look at the brickwork you’ll understand the amount of work and skill that went into the building of it.

Tomorrow we would discover the garden.

The man who worked in the garden – 10 April 2022

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Well, more likely, the man who makes a mess when he tries to help the lady who actually does work in the garden.

We were gardeners today. I was planting potatoes in potato bags. Three potatoes in each of the two bags. Maris Peers. We’d planted them last year and they had produced a good yield. They have been chitting on the window sill upstairs, light but cool. The spell checker thinks they’ve been ‘chatting’ which they might well have been, but they were actually firming up their sprouting shoots in a process known as ‘chitting’. Any chatting was purely accidental. While I was doing that, Scamp was pottering around the garden, filling watering cans, emptying bins and refilling them and pruning, always pruning. We did a quick survey of the garden and I found to my surprise that the Shooting Star which I feared was dead was showing signs of decent growth. Hooray! Also a plant we got brought back from Cambo gardens in St Andrews and had recently planted in the bed outside the back window was also showing signs of shoots as was another plant whose name neither of us can remember but is planted near the Cambo. Almost everything in the garden was rosy!

After lunch I put a decent pair of boots on, not gardening boots, and went for a walk in St Mo’s. With me today I took my old Tamron long zoom and the big, heavy Sigma macro lens. In addition I took a bag of slugs. There were loads of them clambering all over the compost heap and I just wanted rid of them and the eggs they’d be laying, so I put on a pair of disposable vinyl gloves and filled a plastic bag with them, then took them for a walk in St Mo’s. I dumped them in the woods. I hate killing creatures just because I don’t like them, so re-housing them is ok. If I call it re-wilding the countryside I’ll probably get a medal for it. I got today’s PoD in St Mo’s.  It was a coot sitting on its nest, floating among the stooks of last year’s horse tails.

I messed up a setting on the Sony and ended up with three photos for each one I meant to take. Don’t ask for details, just accept that it wasn’t what I intended to do and the excess have now been dumped in the bin.
Saw a duck that I thought was a Potchard, but turned out to be a Widgeon. I remember photographing it last year and being confused about its name then too.

Dinner tonight was the leftover curries from last night and it was fine. Watched a quite interesting F1 GP where Verstappen ran into car trouble and Le Clerc won the race. Unfortunately Hamilton could only manage fourth ;-).

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about all the troubles and tribulations Simonne was having in Trinidad with catching Covid and the aftermath. Also heard the exorbitant price her flight home would have cost if she hadn’t had travel insurance.

Maybe dropping off a present for Olly at his gran and papa’s tomorrow.

 

A busy musical day – 11 March 2022

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Music rarely has a place in the blog, but it has today.

The day started with Scamp driving us to Tesco. Just a usual Friday shop. Basics and a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, the wine wasn’t for us but for friends we were visiting later.

Back home I started making dough for a loaf. I usually take a loaf to Crawford and Nancy in Larky. Scamp reckoned a small loaf would be enough for four of us and small loaves are easier to hand knead, so that’s what I did.

After lunch I went out for a walk and a hope for more frog photos, if they were still there. They were, and the photos were taken. They were taken with my big clunky Tamron 70-300mm lens. It was a great lens some years ago when I first bought it for my Nikon D7000, then things started going wrong. The Vibration Control would sometimes take a day off and just refuse to work. Focusing too was a hit and a miss. I got it repaired, and it worked for a while after that, but it really wasn’t to be trusted. Now I’ve got a Sony and a Nikon adapter which allows the lens to work in manual mode only and without VC. I don’t use a long lens very much and this one covers the times when I need a lens that’s longer than 105mm.

By the time I came back the dough had risen quite well and was ready to go into the little cane basket for its second prove as I looked through the photos from today’s shoot. Surprisingly, some were better than I’d expected. In fact one of the m made PoD.

That had given the bread time to puff up a bit and I bunged it in the oven for the required 25 mins. It came out almost as flat as a pancake. I decided we’d try it tomorrow, but there was no way it was going to Larky.

Time was getting on and it was nearly time to drive over to the the Town Behind the Wall. I was taking a ukulele and a steel strung guitar, because Crawford wanted to have a jam session with him playing uke and me playing guitar. I wasn’t looking forward to it all that much, but it was a really great evening. Both instruments were tuned together and we ran through many of his old favourites, but songs I hadn’t expected. I was very rough to start with, but as the night progressed, I started to settle in to the chord sequences. What I did find was that the finger tips of my left hand were painfully tingling. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat for an hour and a half playing a guitar.  While we were singing and playing, the ladies were in the sitting room blethering.

We left just after midnight, so as you will have guessed by now, this is a catch-up. A small glass of rum as a nightcap because I was driving to dance class in the morning, then it was off to bed.

Tomorrow we’re going to the first dance class in about five weeks. Hope we can remember which foot goes first!

 

Strictly a dancing day – 12 November 2021

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But first a visit to the doc’s to hear the bad news.

I needn’t have worried. For the first time in years, there was no bad news from the nurse about my annual checkup. She went over my numbers and basically everything was fine. Ok, my weight was a bit higher than ideal, but as she said, “everyone has put on weight over the last year.” I left feeling much better than I had when I went in. Isn’t that what doctors surgeries are meant to do?

Next step was to collect together our latest ‘Small Electrical’ devices and take them on a one way trip to the skips. It was just small things like the old coffee grinder which would no longer switch on. Also my hard working Nexus 7 tablet. Nine years old and still working … well, it really depends what you expect from ‘working’. If you mean that you switch it on and it works, then it’s working. However those who want it to work about thirty seconds after pressing the power button and to keep working for at least five minutes after the screen appears, might be disappointed. I was one of the latter group. It had to go. It’s been replaced by a new Lenovo 8” tablet that is doing everything I expect from a tablet, except taste sugary, but that’s probably a different kind of tablet! The last thing to go was a half bottle of white spirit that I kept meaning to chuck out just for safety reasons. It, too, has now left the building. With all that done and after handing over an arm and a leg for a tank full of petrol, we were ready to go to Perth.

Drove up to a dull, dreich Perth, surely not how it was going to be this weekend? The hotel did nothing to lift my spirits. Allegedly the oldest established hotel in Scotland, it had hosted Bonnie Prince Charlie as a guest back in 1745 and I think it has been painted since then, maybe only once. Just a typical old, old hotel that’s like a maze inside. Ours was a tiny wee room with a lovely view of the carpark and the back of a tenement, but that wasn’t important. We were there to dance.

The was a table plan to consult as we went in to the ballroom and four dancers were already seated when we found our table. Standoffish? Just a bit. Condescending? Just a bit. Who cares, we were there to enjoy the dancing, not the company.

Dinner tonight was typical hotel food, I chose Melon with Midori as a starter, then Haggis Stuffed Chicken as my main course with Meringue and Fresh Fruit for pudding. Typical hotel food! Scamp’s starter was also Melon  but she had a main of Sweet & Sour Vegetables which apparently tasted brilliant. Pudding was a Sticky Toffee one.

With dinner over, dancing began and we threw ourselves in and had a great night. Not great dancing until the opportunity came for a bit of Salsa. Six of us could dance Cuban salsa and about six others who took to the floor danced ballroom salsa. I didn’t get a chance to see what their dancing was like, I was too busy dancing salsa.

By midnight I was totally beat, physically, as was Scamp, but we were both buzzing when we struggled through the maze to go to bed.

PoD was a photo taken in the afternoon, through the bedroom window of the backside of Perth!

Early start tomorrow for a dance lesson then an afternoon free before the formal dance at night.

Out to lunch – 22 September 2021

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Scamp had arranged a lunch for Gems to mark the end of an era for the singing group.

A sad day in a way, but as she, and the other ladies, admitted, although Covid had put an end to their activities with all the churches and halls closing their doors during Lockdown, the heyday for the singing group had passed. The final decision had really been taken out of their hands. All the remaining members joined in the celebration of years of providing music and enjoyment to people who needed just that little lift. I was taxi driver for today and drove Scamp and Margie down to The Village for their lunch.

That meant I had some time on my own and nothing to do, or so I thought. I’d intended doing some painting or drawing because Inktober is just around the corner. In the end I just added some pastel to the ongoing sketch that lives in the back room. Then I started on more catch-up for the blog and finally finished the posting of photos on Flickr. Finally I made a bowl of dough to make a pizza for dinner, mine really, but I knew Scamp would sample it too.

I’d almost finished when my phone chirped to tell me it was time to go and pick up the ladies. It had turned into one of those miserable Scottish days with drizzle and rain designed to dampen anyone’s spirits, but they seemed to have had a good afternoon.

I couldn’t be bothered going out to get wet and come home with a miserable set of photos, so I put the A6000 on the Gorilla Pod and set up a tabletop display of some of our apples. Red ones are James Grieve (much redder than usual) the dull green ones are Russets. One of those shots became PoD.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go dancing, tea dancing, and there will be cake!

Away for the messages – 17 September 2021

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This was nominated a Recovery Day. That’s what we did.

We needed some messages and I wanted to find out how much EE wanted from me for a reasonable amount of data and a Sim-only contract. We agreed to go to The Fort.

Scamp went to M&S and I walked round to the EE shop. Three people serving and only two customers. Waited 15 minutes, but nobody was paying any attention. I gave up and walked out. I might come back another day or I might just go to Tesco instead. The Tesco website tells you how much you get for how much money. The EE website is a maze. It tells you nothing.

Back at the car I met Scamp and we went food shopping in Morrisons then we drove home. After lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp went to see how the garden was growing.

It was a relaxing day, because, even with our alfresco dancing lesson in Cumbria, we’ll still be a bit rusty for the real class tomorrow.

Well Done Colin – 15 September 2021

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We woke to mist, or was it fog. Whatever it was, it was taking a while to clear. While it was clearing, Went out to take some photos of the sheep in the field across the road. I meant to shoot the sheep, but I got photobombed by the Shetland Pony stallion and I thought “Why not?” The resulting image worked for me.

Just after the sheep and photobombing stallion photo shoot, the mist started clearing quite rapidly and we were off to conquer the Nine Standards. The Nine Standards are nine (strangely enough), mostly conical cairns on top of Nine Standards Rigg which is over 620m above sea level. We weren’t climbing all 620m because Jamie was driving up to a parking place below the start of the main climb. Actually we’d walked the first part of it from Kirkby Stephen to the parking place last year.

The climb, or walk, started off well with Vixen leading the way and at a blistering rate. Scamp and I were bringing up the rear and I will admit that I was feeling the strain after about 20mins, even at Jamie’s relaxed pace. After a while we encouraged Jamie to go on ahead and keep Simonne company. Eventually at about two thirds distance I had to tell Scamp to leave me and walk up to meet the other two. I was almost totally exhausted. However, after about fifteen minutes rest sitting on some sheep droppings, watching the clouds form and reform over the distant hills I felt better, hoisted myself to my feet and plodded on up the never ending hill. Two more stops were needed to catch my breath and a couple of phone calls where I lied to Scamp that I was still sitting comfortably where she’d left me. No way was I going to tell her I was heading for the top. I think the others were almost ready to start the descent when I finally reached the cairns. A chocolate energy bar from Jamie and half a bottle of water sitting at one of the cairns gave me enough or a rest to start the walk down, which Jamie had repeatedly told us was much easier than the climb up.

He was right. The descent was much easier than I though it would be and best of all, instead of an ever present hill in front of us, we had a panorama of hills, blue sky and clouds to keep us interested. On the way down we met a group of three Auld Guys on their way up. We spoke a while to them. The lead walker was 76, the next was 86 and the final member was nearly 90. We were instructed to make sure to say “Well done, Colin” when we met him, and that’s what we did. He just laughed and said “Somebody must be broadcasting it!”

After Jamie drove us home we were treated to another, even more spectacular air show with a low flying helicopter another BAE Hawk. I wonder how much that operation cost. No idea where the helicopter came from, but the jet came all the way from Anglesey.

Scamp an I went for another walk along the road later in the afternoon to loosen our legs. Jamie and Simonne were making Parmigiano Chicken tonight.

The PoD wasn’t the cairns, or the view from the top, but the tree. It’s been in and out of Lightroom a few times since it was taken, but I like the look of it now.

Tomorrow is the day we all know must come. We all go home, but today was mighty!

New boots need New socks – 14 September 2021

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Today we headed to Kirkby Stephen to buy a new pair of socks for Scamp’s new boots. Not surprisingly we didn’t go to Mad about Mountains, mainly because we wanted a PAIR of socks, not just one. Also the socks were for walking boots, not for running shoes. We went straight to Eden Outdoors and got two pairs of socks one pair wool and one pair cotton.

Jamie, Simonne and Vixen had left by the time we got back, heading for more hills to climb, so we had the house to ourselves. There is a long paved patio at the back of the house. Just the ideal place to dance on. We managed to get a full run at the Foxtrot and the Waltz. Of course we couldn’t do the fancy spin turns on the paving stones, but the rest of it worked well. Probably the first time we’d managed the full length of the Foxtrot.
So what did you do on your holiday?
Well, we danced the Foxtrot on the patio of the house!

Just at the end of the alfresco dance class a helicopter flew low over and apparently landed not far away, behind the house. Next a BAE Systems Hawk trainer flew over almost as low as the helicopter. It banked sharply and appeared to circle the house. Were they intent on getting a closer view of our Foxtrot? Well, it was an impressive routine, but we came to the conclusion that the helicopter had been carrying soldiers from nearby Warcop base and the jet was there to add a bit of spice to their war-games.

The airshow went on for quite a while, but eventually they all calmed down and JS&V returned from their walk. We went out for another test walk with the new boots and socks. The socks were an improvement on the old ones and made the boots more comfortable. So said Scamp and she should know.

We made quiche for dinner. Instead of a baked pastry base, we used tortillas we’d bought in the morning. Scamp made Quiche Lorraine and I made Jackie’s Smoked Salmon and Broccoli Quiche. Both turned out fine and we’d made enough for all of us with some to spare for tomorrow.

PoD was an old barn we saw on our late afternoon walk. For once I didn’t photograph the jet or the helicopter!

Tomorrow we may go climbing a mountain.